Weekly Roundup: Returning to the World Edition

Blinking blearily at my computer screen, like a caver who hasn’t see natural light in two weeks, I start vaguely groping towards being a person on the internet again. Ever just not check your inbox for a week? Yeah.

I’ve been in the wilds of Southern Ontario for a week; your city ways are strange to me now.

Almost two weeks ago, I got some terrible news about a sudden and completely unexpected death in my family. The intervening days have been both gruelling and alienating, and I feel a but like I have forgotten what I was actually doing with my life before things got so intensely shaken up. This is my very pitiful first attempt to return to some kind of normalcy.

For About Heavy Metal, I contributed a review of the excellent debut from Witherscape, Dan Swanö’s new project, entitled The Inheritence. “The tone is a deep, sumptuous combination of driving, doomy riffs and lighter, Opeth-esque passages, a perfect balance of dark and light.”

Also, a new edition of the column Sound Advice went up on Torontoist, featuring Organized Accidents, the ninth studio album from By Divine Right. “There’s not a bit of fat here, and even the most dreamy, psychedelic moments of wandering feel absolutely essential.”

Book Reviews: Speculating

I’m really excited about this one. On August 9th, four of my reviews of recent science fiction and fantasy books were published in the Globe & Mail. I reviewed iD by Madeline Ashby (the second book in her Machine Dynasty series), Gods & Monsters: Unclean Spirits by Chuck Wendig, Sister Mine by Nalo Hopkinson, and YOU by Austin Grossman. The reviews also appeared in print in the Globe’s weekend Books section under the title Speculating. This is the first time my work has appeared in the Globe & Mail and I’m thrilled about it. It looks like Speculating is going to return as well, approximately monthly-ish, so there will be more to come in a few weeks!

Video

AUX put together this short, lovely video about A Tribe Called Red (who fuse electronic dance music with traditional pow-wow), their excellent new record Nation II Nation, and their connection to the Idle No More movement for their #RoadToPolaris series, examining each of the albums on the Polaris Prize shortlist. I talk a little but about why I adore the record, and in the process talk with my hands more than any human ought to be allowed.

Stay Connected

Natalie Zed’s Latest News

Current Projects

I am working on a collection of Polyamorous fairytales. Because "happily ever after" can mean a lot of different things, and not all of them are represented right now. We have a Polytales etsy store with some amazing poly valentines/ love cards, and are working towards a Kickstarter launch.

I'm also nearing the end of a draft my first novel, a piece of speculative fiction about a henchwoman. It also involves office politics, infrared photography and a profound misunderstanding of quantum mechanics.

I recently wrote a series of poems using the notes engine in the video game Bloodborne. You can find them on the Tumblr I have dedicated to the project, Fine or Foul. You might also stumble across them while you're wandering through Yharnam, good hunter. I wrote about my process and the experience (and about bow Bloodborne is very very hard) for First Person Scholar.

I also write video games. Most recently, I built a terrible little piece of body horror called A Gift For Mother, using Jim Munroe's engine Texture (still in beta). I also did writing and research for The Oldest Game (a newsgame about sex work),collaborated with Izzie Colpitts-Campbell and Kat Verhoeven on So You've Been Fridged(about women in refrigerators and the narrative vortex), and began a game called Restless about a ghost becoming ever more adept at haunting during the Dames Making Games long-form game program Junicorn.

I am also constantly poking at a series of poems that explore the metallurgical and alchemical properties of aggressive music.